A Dark Place to Die Read online

  43

  Feeling battered, both physically and mentally, Koop takes a cab back to his hotel. Despite wanting to slump miserably in the back seat, he rides up front as is the custom with Liverpool cabs. To sit in the back could be seen as giving yourself airs. Thankfully, and unusually, the cabbie isn't the chatty sort. After his opening gambit on the likelihood of a management change at Anfield after the latest tragic loss to the Mancs (Ferguson had won his bet with Keane) has elicited a monosyllabic grunt, the cabbie turns up the radio for the short ride down to the Pier Head. Koop stares out of the window and watches the streets of his home town drift past. It's a city in flux, being pulled in contradictory directions.

  He won't be coming back any time soon.

  The cab pulls up outside the hotel. He pays the guy, overtipping him, and gets into the lift. It feels like forever since he left the place yesterday morning. As the lift rises, Frank feels nauseous and dizzy.

  He checks his watch. Eleven am UK, 10 pm in the Northern Rivers. He'll call Zoe when he gets to the room, tell her he's coming back. With luck, she'll have simmered down by now and if she hasn't, then, frankly, Koop is past caring. Zoe's wrath is no more than he deserves. Still, it'd be nice if she was in a forgiving mood. He needs something to look forward to.

  The lift doors ping and Koop steps out into the hushed hallway. He slides the key card from his pocket and inserts it into the hotel door. The room is of the kind that requires the key card placed in a wall socket to access power. Koop slots it home and presses the light switch. As well as the light, the radio comes on, blaring out some anodyne generic R&B.

  Koop walks the few paces into the bedroom and stops.

  Keith Kite's corpse is tied to the hotel bed, naked save for a pair of soiled Calvin Kleins. A sock has been stuffed into his mouth and fixed in place with duct tape. Koop can see the woollen edges of the sock poking out below his nose. Kite's eyes are open, staring wildly at the ceiling through a dry mask of blood.

  His throat has been cut and he has been badly beaten.

  Koop realises he isn't breathing. He leans back against the hotel wall and tries to recover some sort of equilibrium. The atmosphere in the room is thick and Koop turns the air-conditioning to full.

  He looks down at the floor. There are a number of blood marks on the tasteful ochre carpet. Taking care not to step on any, Koop draws closer to the bed. Kite's blood has soaked into the mattress. His aching muscles protesting, Koop squats awkwardly close to the floor and peers underneath the bed. The base looks relatively dry and there's no sign of a weapon. As he rises, Koop almost topples forward onto Kite. He puts out a hand to the wall and steadies himself, his breathing heavy.

  Behind him, the curtains to the room are open. To one side of the window is an office block. Koop can see a few shadowy figures moving around in those rooms that have lights on. He draws the curtains and sits down on a hard chair at the tiny desk to think.

  After a few minutes have passed, Koop takes out his mobile and looks at it. The obvious thing is to call Keane. His finger hovers above the keys and then he closes his phone and replaces it in his pocket. He thinks about how this will play with Keane.

  His thoughts aren't flowing easily and his head is pounding but those conclusions he does manage to reach aren't good.

  Strike one: he fights with Kite and Kite turns up dead.

  Strike two: Keane knows Koop's suspicions about Kite's involvement in the killing of Stevie.

  Strike three – and this one makes Koop blink: his meeting with Carl now assumes a conspiratorial air.

  Christ! Don't tell me Carl did this? Koop squeezes his forehead. Could he have? Some sort of twisted family thing? Blood is blood, said Carl. There are buckets of the stuff here. Koop tries hard to think clearly but can't. Instead, Koop does what he knows best: he acts.

  He moves to the door and looks out through the security peephole. The fisheye view of the area in front of the door reveals nothing except an expanse of bland carpeting and wall. Koop opens the door a crack and peeks out. Seeing no-one, and taking care not to emerge into the catchment area of any CCTV cameras, he hangs the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the outer handle and closes the door. He snips the security lock and goes back inside.

  Koop slides open the door of the built-in wardrobe. His small suitcase is where he left it, seemingly untouched. He places it on the desk, making sure there's no blood on the surface. He opens the lid and checks the contents. He didn't unpack much on arrival, and the clothes he hung in the wardrobe he now places inside the suitcase. Koop next moves to the bathroom and, after washing his face, packs his toiletries into his carry case and puts that inside his suitcase. He fastens the case and sets it carefully by the door.

  Returning to the desk, Koop calls down to reception on his mobile. He could use the hotel room phone but that would place him inside the room at that particular time. Besides, the phone is liberally spattered with Kite's blood. Koop connects to reception and tells them he'd like to stay another two nights. He directs the girl to use the credit card they swiped on arrival. He hangs up and uses the hotel directory to put him in touch with the airlines. After three unsuccessful attempts to find an economy or business flight, he books himself a first-class ticket on an Emirates flight leaving Manchester at three. It isn't much of a start but the measures might confuse them long enough to make sure he arrives in Australia unmolested.

  Koop looks at his watch. Twelve, almost. He checks the room one last time. He switches off the radio and the sudden silence seems to increase the tension. Thinking about it for a moment, Koop turns the radio back on and lowers the volume enough that it won't cause complaints in the night, but loud enough for an insistent housemaid to hear should she be at the door. Again, it could buy him an hour or two.

  Finally, Koop opens his phone and methodically deletes all messages, photos, notes and web history. There's nothing incriminating on there but it will make things simpler if it ends up in the hands of an investigation team.

  At the door he takes pains to make sure he is unobserved and unobtrusive. He jams a cap down low on his head, turns his collar up and exits the hotel via the emergency stairs. He walks swiftly up towards the Town Hall and hails a cab. One hour later he's at Manchester Airport and has checked in for the flight.

  What the fuck is going on?

  44

  Kite's body is discovered by a cleaner less than an hour after Koop leaves and brings the OCS in like a plague. While Stevie White's murder may have been an 'open' case, Kite is one of theirs, no question.

  Perch, rolling over like a tame pup, cedes authority to the OCS head in an instant. It's only the ongoing involvement in the Stevie White case that keeps Keane and the MIT in the loop at all.

  And just so there's no doubt about who is now in charge, the OCS investigative team keeps Keane and Harris outside the hotel room while they conduct their own operation. They're told to wait as the crime scene is too small for both teams to have simultaneous access, but Keane knows it for what it is: a straightforward slap in the face; punishment for one of theirs going rogue. He paces the corridor outside while OCS officers come and go.

  Harris is keeping communication with Keane to a minimum. The Kite case is fast becoming a potential career disaster and she is canny enough to know that while loyalty to Frank Keane is expected, undue or excessive loyalty would be seen as plain stupid. She notes with pain one or two OCS boys openly smiling as they pass them in the corridor.

  Eventually they're waved in by DI Moresby, one of the OCS senior detectives assigned to the case, a taciturn Welshman who doesn't mince his words. His partner, Dave Reader, is talking to a SOCO in the corridor.

  'All yours. Try not to screw my scene around too much, and don't take too long about it. I'm getting pressure to let the hotel get back to normal quick. They want that thing in there out this afternoon. I don't see any reason not to let that happen.' He pauses and moves a little closer to Keane. 'And I'll need what you have on Kite's earlier involvement on
my desk this afternoon. Plus, if you have any inside gen on your pal Koopman, we want to know, right?'

  Keane doesn't answer. He pushes past Moresby and opens the door to the hotel room.

  'Didn't you hear me, Keane? I said . . .'

  'He heard you,' says Harris. 'Give him a break, eh?'

  Moresby shakes his head a fraction. 'My desk. This afternoon.'

  Harris regards him coolly. 'We'll do our best, DI Moresby.'

  'And Koopman?'

  'That too,' she nods. 'If we know anything.'

  She turns and follows Keane inside, leaving Moresby looking at her.

  The room is coated in print dust and the detritus of the SOC unit. Keane is standing at the end of the bed staring down at Kite's spread-eagled form. Harris closes the hotel bedroom door and stands to one side of the bed.

  'Not good, Frank,' she says. 'I wouldn't have thought Koopman capable of something like this.'

  Keane doesn't say anything.

  'Frank?'

  'He's not,' says Keane, eventually. 'It's just not something he'd do.'

  'But he's done it, Frank. Look.'

  Keane shakes his head.

  'No, not Koop, Em.'

  Harris opens her phone and clicks onto her notes application.

  'He must have been back here because his belongings are gone. He booked himself in for a couple of extra days and hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. Frank, Koopman gave himself as long as possible to get a head start. It doesn't look good.'

  Keane wanders across to the desk and idly opens the drawer.

  'I know,' he says. 'But at the risk of sounding like one of those TV detectives, don't you think it all seems a bit too convenient?'

  'When things look straightforward they usually are.'

  'Mostly. But not this time. Koop arrives here, argues with Kite in front of everyone and the next time Kite is seen he's dead in Koop's room? I don't buy it, Em, not even for a minute.'

  'You said he and Kite had history. And then Kite turns out to have been the scum who tortured and murdered his only son. I'd say that was motive, Frank. Enough for anyone. Christ, he glassed the fucker at The Granary in front of a hundred witnesses two days ago. Had to be pulled off by Kite's bodyguards.'

  'And given a right going-over.'

  'Exactly,' says Harris. She moves towards Keane and touches his arm. 'I know he's a friend, Frank. I know he goes back a long way, but this just isn't going to have a happy outcome for Koopman.'

  'Listen, Em. There are a couple of things that don't add up: Koop was in Broadgreen overnight and when he was discharged I brought him in.'

  'So he says,' says Harris. 'He could have left the ward easily.'

  'What, and organised this?' Keane waves his hand over the abomination on the hotel bed. 'You think it would have been easy to get Keith Kite trussed up like that? Whoever did this has done this shit before, Em. You're not saying Menno Koopman is a serial killer now, are you?'

  'Of course not,' says Harris. 'But Moresby and Reader have Koopman in the frame for this one. And I think they're going to get him. You have to choose which side of the fence you're going to be on when this all gets to an arrest.'

  'Is that what this is about, Em? Worried about your career? Well, you can leave the shitty end of things in my hands, if you like. I'm not leaving Koop out to dry. He deserves better than that.'

  'What about me, Frank? What do I deserve?'

  'I don't know, Em. You tell me. What do you deserve?'

  Keane walks towards the door just as the men from the Coroner's Office arrive.

  'Where are you going?' says Harris as the room fills up. She pushes past them and follows Keane into the corridor. 'Frank!'

  'What?' he says as he reaches the lift.

  'What are you going to do?'

  'Do what we should have done at the start of all this.'

  'Which is?'

  'Follow the money.'

  The lift arrives and Keane gets in. He holds the door open.

  'Well?' he says as Harris hesitates.

  She shrugs and follows him inside. Keane presses the down button.

  'What money?'

  Keane begins to talk.

  45

  Declan North arrives in Sydney, fresh and rested after a flight which lands at 6.35 am. As a first-class passenger, and travelling on his own perfectly legitimate UK passport, North moves through Immigration and Customs without incident. Without so much as a parking ticket on his record, and with several kosher business interests to support any story he might have to tell, he doesn't expect any trouble.

  'Welcome to Australia, Mr North.' The border-control officer smiles and stamps his passport. No-one at Sydney has any problems with the Irish businessman coming to town. North wears a modern-cut lightweight grey suit and carries an expensive leather briefcase. He has only one small, equally expensive suitcase, which is priority checked through for him. By 8 am he's on a VirginBlue domestic shuttle flight to the Gold Coast, paying cash and using a false ID. It never hurts to muddy the waters a little on the off-chance someone in Australia is interested. Before boarding he takes out his mobile and makes a call.

  On the flight north he sits next to a middle-aged woman who, on hearing his accent and working on the almost universal assumption that all Irishmen are charming, tries to engage him in conversation. He politely avoids doing so while fondly imagining working on her with his blade. The fat bitch would cut up nicely. After a few minutes during which North makes simple, non-committal answers to her chattering, she winds down like a mechanical toy and he completes the rest of the journey in welcome silence. She'll have to find another sort of Irishman, some chirpy Plastic Paddy, to get her fix of blarney if that's what she's after. North's left all that bollix behind in Belfast ten years ago. Next to her, he inches away from the touch of her elbow and passes the time imagining what he would do to her if he didn't have more pressing business at the end of his journey.

  It has taken planning to get to this point. Months and months of very careful planning, which was very nearly derailed by the arrival of Menno Koopman. That was a surprise to Kite, a very nasty surprise. Not as surprising as when he woke up tied to Koopman's hotel bed with Declan North standing over him, scalpel in hand, but surprising nonetheless.

  North had planned to get rid of Kite in an unremarkable fashion by shooting him and placing his body in a landfill site near Warrington. Instead, on his pathetic amateur detective hunt, Koopman presented North with a wonderful opportunity. Implicating the ex-cop in the murder of Kite would deflect attention from himself and potentially land the interfering fecker in jail. At the very least it would mean months, if not years, of Koopman becoming entangled with the Liverpool Police. Which all leaves North free and clear to step up after ten years of hearing that fucking pain in the hole, Kite. Ten years of listening to him crap on about art, when it was North who'd introduced the ridiculous jumped-up scally twat to . . .

  'What?'

  The fat woman is looking at him, a fearful expression on her face. North realises he's been angrily muttering to himself, his features twisted into a gargoyle snarl, something he's found himself doing on more than one occasion recently.

  'Excuse the blather,' says North. He rearranges his features into something he hopes will be more acceptable to the old wagon next to him than the hellish creature that has temporarily shown her its face. 'I was on a long flight before this one. Must have been having a wee nightmare.'

  The fat woman doesn't say anything. As soon as the plane arrives at the gate she springs up and, taking her bag from the overhead locker, gets off the plane as fast as she can, without ever once looking at North again.

  North knows the woman has seen him for what he is. Has seen who he is at his core. And, like any sane human, has tried to put as much distance between herself and the glimpsed demon as quickly as possible.

  He's seen the same look on the faces of some of those he's killed. Once or twice he's glanced in the mirror and seen it him
self; another creature inside the shell of this person called North. Sometimes, in his most unhinged moments, slick with blood in the becalmed hour before dawn, he wonders if that's what has happened; that his body is simply the carrier for something elemental.

  Fuck it. The woman doesn't matter. She's seen what he is but what could anyone do with that information except store it up for sleepless nights? Still, he'd have enjoyed making her nightmares come true. North brightens as he remembers Koopman has a wife out here. He smiles as an idea comes to mind. A truly artistic idea.

  North collects his bag and walks out of the terminal into the golden sunlight. At the kerbside pick-up in front of the outdoor café is a black Range Rover. A man leans against the door, smoking. At the sight of North, he drops the butt and walks across, his hand held out.

  'Declan?'

  'Mr North,' says North, without a trace of a smile. 'If you don't mind.'

  'Er, sure, yeah, right, whatever . . . Mr North.'

  'No, man, I'm only fucking with yer. Dec'll be fine.'

  North puts out his hand and the man shakes it, relief washing over him. Declan North's reputation has travelled ahead of him.

  'Tony Link,' says the man. 'Welcome to the Gold Coast.'

  46

  Keane and Harris are back at Stanley Road. With Perch's wrath still ringing in their ears and the OCS crawling all over the Stevie White case, MIT is not a happy ship. The White investigation, seemingly so straightforward at the outset, is proving a bastard and there is a tangible sense that it is drifting beyond the control of MIT. It's not as if they don't have a full workload elsewhere. In fact, Caddick and Rose, along with several of the DCs, have been detailed to get stuck into the backlog. But no-one wants the White case to become the sole property of the OCS. Pride is at stake.

  There's a side benefit to this, though. Using Caddick to housekeep also means he isn't privy to the innermost details of the remaining investigation. Keane still doesn't trust him, and after Kite's death feels more sure than ever that Caddick is a direct link to Perch's office.